Simple answer yes. Lucas's screenplay should have been a guideline. When a project is not a collaborative effort you can sense the lack of passion from those that observably involved hence why much of the acting felt felt wooden. Even Anakin would have sounded more authentic.

Simple answer yes. Lucas's screenplay should have been a guideline. When a project is not a collaborative effort you can sense the lack of passion from those that observably involved hence why much of the acting felt felt wooden. Even Anakin would have sounded more authentic.

I'm in agreement for the most part. Good actors can bring something to the script that wasn't there. I don't necessarily think improv is essential, but Lucas is not a good dialogue writer (he wrote the PT stuff himself, right?). And I still haven't figured out, as far as the PT goes, whether Hayden and Natalie had ZERO chemistry onscreen or if they were merely victims of terrible script and direction. Maybe you could work around lack of chemistry a bit, but those lines they had to deliver were nails in the coffin.

I'm in agreement for the most part. Good actors can bring something to the script that wasn't there. I don't necessarily think improv is essential, but Lucas is not a good dialogue writer (he wrote the PT stuff himself, right?). And I still haven't figured out, as far as the PT goes, whether Hayden and Natalie had ZERO chemistry onscreen or if they were merely victims of terrible script and direction. Maybe you could work around lack of chemistry a bit, but those lines they had to deliver were nails in the coffin.

I blame it also on terrible casting for half the roles. Obviously the good choices were Ewan, Liam, basically any Europeans, which always seem to be better than their American counterparts these days. Hayden Christensen is just plain and simple a freakin' terrible, terrible sham of an actor. Completely annoying, and made the role of Anikan even MORE annoying. We're supposed to root for Darth Vader, not hate the guy, and be able to relate when he does eventually turn, like he had no choice. His turn happened over the course of minutes and didn't seem authentic at all. Natalie and Ewan sounded horrible because of their lines and faked their emotions terribly because the story was just very hard to invest in I'm sure as actors. Ewan was at his best in the TPM I think. Once he got into a mentor role, he got cheesy (or at least his lines did). When he delivers the line about "killing younglings" I almost laughed. It was THAT bad.

I also think Jake Lloyd was a terrible, annoying choice for Anikan. I rest my claim on both terrible Anikan choices by their follow up film successes.....oh wait....

Even Carrie Fisher and Mark had decent careers after with Carrie starring in some romantic comedies of the 80s and Mark with his incredible voice work as The Joker. They were viable. The 2 Anikans were complete flops. Anikan's mom was pretty bad too. The fact that Trade Federations were brought into a "fun" movie series just killed it as well. There should have been some deep Jedi/Sith stuff going on and while I understand government plays a role in every day life no matter what, the best movies George made were using the fun factor and creativity. I also thought R2 and 3P0 were completely lame and unnecessary and forced. For example, what piece of technology do we know that has literally remained unchanged for 20-30 years? Aside from a hoola-hoop and a football, I'm not really sure. Most certainly, these droids wouldn't have even been invented yet. The whole Anikan-built-him was just so, so lame and unfathomable. It's just ridiculous. George tried to make everything a McGuffin and connect his entire universe.

Also, the total lack of real sets and CGI overload makes ANY movie look like crap. If the audience can't invest in the action and believe in it, you damn well know the actors couldn't either. George's magic was that he made space look real and down-right dirty, while keeping it sterile with the Empire, who were cold and calculated. Perfect metaphor there. Way to screw it up George. Any guy who would rather design CGI clones who run through a scene, even one with his helmet off, rather than have a REAL guy in a suit run through is just absolutely NUTS! He blew more money trying to prove he could do everything in CGI and more of this respect, than if he would have just used real actors in those parts. Complete idiocy.

Finally, he did a terrible job of backtracking his technology. Everything looked as it would after ROTJ, maybe 20 years later, not 20-30 BEFORE. All the ships looked brand new, all the imperial/republic craft totally looked new. There is no sense of "old" to the stuff at all. I wanted to see some REALLY square stuff with few smooth lines so it transitioned into the linear looking X-wings and TIEs. Even the lightsabers, while cool looking, were completely too new. They needed to be really basic and stripped down, along with the blasters. Almost like rapiers going back to broad swords. The audience should be able to feel "old" in everything. I guess that's the problem with sci-fi, the stuff never existed in the first place so how can anyone really know what it looked like in previous iterations? Still, a MUCH bigger emphasis needed to be put on the "sheen of oldness" that should have permeated throughout the movies.

While we're at it, the 3rd podracer that gets killed and the medical droid that delivers Luke and Leia to Padme were flops as well, horrible horrible acting. :p

While they did use a lot of CGI in the PT, they did use a lot of physical sets and models for the movies. If memory serves me right they made more real sets for ROTS then they did in any of the other 5 films.

While they did use a lot of CGI in the PT, they did use a lot of physical sets and models for the movies. If memory serves me right they made more real sets for ROTS then they did in any of the other 5 films.

Really? I haven't watched the prequels in a long time, but from what I remember there's probably about 20 times more locations and other stuff in ROTS than in any of the original films, so even if they used more real sets and models it still feels like a small part compared to all the cgi stuff they threw on top. Apart from some scenes on Tatooine and Naboo I really can't think of any other place in the PT that felt like a real place to me.

Really? I haven't watched the prequels in a long time, but from what I remember there's probably about 20 times more locations and other stuff in ROTS than in any of the original films, so even if they used more real sets and models it still feels like a small part compared to all the cgi stuff they threw on top. Apart from some scenes on Tatooine and Naboo I really can't think of any other place in the PT that felt like a real place to me.

the only film that was good from the pt is episode 3. episodes 1 and 2 arent needed at all